JD Shep’s Game Fly Rental Review Summer Extravaganza #2 was originally posted as a Facebook note on 06/20/2010. Minor changes were made to the content and format.

Second on the list from Game Fly was “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” Uncaged Edition for the Xbox 360.

Quick Synopsis:“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is a bloody and gore filled 3rd person action/adventure game based on the movie with the same title. I liked the movie for the most part (minus the way they did Gambit and Deadpool), even though Hollywood seems to butcher some of the story when it comes to comic book based movies. Then there is the fact that video game developers seem to butcher the story even further. That being said, I believe that “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was one of the better video games based on a movie.

The story takes place in two different times. The main time line is the same as the bulk of the movie with flash backs to Africa before Wolverine split from the team. So the flashbacks actually added some good story to the game and a good supplement to the movie. Unfortunately, like most games based on movies the developers went ~20,000 different directions with the time frame that coincides with the movie. Fighting The Blob in a grocery store, for example, but that is just details.

My personal stats:I played this game on the Normal Difficulty. There is a possibility if 50 achievements for 1000 points. I was able to unlock 45 achievements for 830 points. There is a statistics screen to help you through some of the achievements (did something so many times listings).

Pros:Graphics:
1) Graphics are both pro and con. The pros are the graphics overall were pretty decent, and the cinematics were impressive.

Game Play:
2) You are Wolverine, bub, one of the most recognized and followed Marvel Universe characters. You are an animal and you have friggin’ claws!

3) Like the movie, the healing ability is exaggerated, but that is what makes the game fun. The only time I died was because I entered a predetermined no go zone on two different levels. (More on that in the ‘cons’).

4) If you look at this game separate from the movie and the comics, it has a good story line.

5) The developers played true to Wolverine the character, not necessarily the movie. The fighting is awesome; you have heavy and light attacks, lunge attacks, and fury (special) attacks. There are characters that you cannot just rip through and therefore you have to do a different tactic. When you get that tactic down, repeat until the bad guy is dead.

6) There were puzzles in the game as well, which brought a different spin to it.

7) You have something called Feral Senses playing on Wolverine’s heightened senses. The only down fall, which I would not consider a con, is that I found myself playing in this mode 95% of the time. You lose out on the normal graphics. I did the same thing in “Batman: Arkham Asylum” with detective vision.

8) You can unlock costumes and wear the classic yellow spandex!

Cons:I am going to have to nick pick a little.

Graphics:
1) Graphic wise you can see Wolverine constantly changing from shirtless to the white tank top and back again. They were lots of system and graphical glitches.

Audio:
2) When he has bone claws in the flash backs they sound exactly like the adamantium claws.

Game Play:
3) There was an instance where I had to play one section for over an hour because there was some lag for a double jump to get across sections. I finally had to go to YouTube to see what I was doing wrong, and even after that it was frustrating.

4) Couldn’t do the Weapon X Arena, which contains 4 training simulators, since I did not preorder the game or willing to spend money on it.

Conclusion:On a 1 (worse) through 5 (best) scale, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is a (3) Buy Used/Mega Sale mainly so you can have some money to buy the add-on. If the add-on came with it I would say it would be a (4) Buy Gently Used/Sale. It was a really fun game to play. I can see myself going back through playing on the Hard Difficulty that you unlock after beating the game once, and from what I hear about the Weapon X Arena add-on that would bring some more game play to it as well. Plus, you are friggin’ WOLVERINE!